Class offers German-style apprenticeship to Brookwood High students

Sunday

May 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | Josh Ethridge graduated from Brookwood High School a year ago. But in January, he returned to the high school to join seven high school seniors in a new class — a German-approved apprenticeship training — the kind that gives German teens the skills to work for a specific German company upon graduation.

By Patrick RupinskiBusiness Editor

TUSCALOOSA | Josh Ethridge graduated from Brookwood High School a year ago. But in January, he returned to the high school to join seven high school seniors in a new class — a German-approved apprenticeship training — the kind that gives German teens the skills to work for a specific German company upon graduation.Such a program had not been offered before in Alabama.In this case, the class was set up at the behest of BLG Logistics Inc., a subsidiary of Bremen, Germany, -based BLG Logistics Group.BLG Logistics in Vance serves Mercedes-Benz U.S. International. It handles the automobile parts used to build the luxury cars and the shipping of the finished vehicles.Ethridge had gotten a job working at a local warehouse after graduating in 2012. It was a job, but not a career, so he said he welcomed the chance to join Brookwood High’s logistics training, which offered the opportunity for a better job.“I enjoyed it and got to see how much there is to logistics and how important good team work is in logistics,” he said. “I didn’t know how much logistics was involved in places like BLG and Mercedes.” Finding qualified workers to fill the increasingly sophisticated jobs in West Alabama’s expanding auto industry is a concern for the industry’s employers.Mercedes and other manufacturers have used training programs at Shelton State Community College and other community colleges for years to train people interested in working for them. But BLG is the first to embrace the German-style apprenticeship training class in a local high school.On Wednesday, the eight students in the first class were honored by BLG executives, including BLG Logistics Group’s president and chairman Detthold Aden, several of the company’s board members and the German American Chamber of Commerce.And on Thursday, Ethridge became a full-time employee at BLG. The other seven students in the apprenticeship program will graduate from Brookwood High on Friday, and three days later on May 20, they, too, will become full-time employees at BLG.At a time when many high school and college graduates are fretting about finding their first jobs, the eight Brookwood students are starting a career in logistics. “This is a model that could be used in other places,” said Aden, who flew in from Germany for the ceremony at the NorthRiver Yacht Club. “But to do so, you need a high school, a mayor and a government” to work with.That partnership came about almost by accident. It started more than a year ago during a conversation between Vance Mayor Keith Mahaffey and Kirk Atkinson, business development manager for BLG Logistics Inc..Atkinson told Mahaffey that his company needed qualified workers to handle the new jobs being created by the ­area’s expanding auto industry. He noted that in Germany, industries begin training teenagers in apprenticeship programs incorporated in the high school curriculum. Mahaffey suggested BLG do the same here. The mayor called Brookwood High Principal Laura McBride to set up a meeting.McBride liked the idea but said the school had no one to offer the specialized training and no money to pay for it. If funding and an instructor could be secured, the program with its promise of a job upon graduation would be worth trying, she said.The Tuscaloosa County Commission agreed put up some money for the class, and BLG recruited Rolf Benglan, who had 18 years of technical experience in both the German military logistics and private industry logistics to teach the students. Benglan arrived in Tuscaloosa in November and began teaching the students in January. The students spent 10 hours per week in the logistics training program. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, they had classroom training in logistics theory from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. at the high school. Then they went to the BLG Logistics facility for hands-on learning until 5 p.m.It was there they learned about the handling parts for Mercedes vehicles. The parts arrive at the warehouse and must be packaged for the particular vehicle that will be made. The package then has to reach the auto assembly line in the sequence in which they are needed. Mercedes vehicles are customized to customer specifications so each car on the assembly line will have its own set of customized components. A missed item or the wrong set screws could cause problems and slow production at the Mercedes factory.“I believe in hands-on training,” Benglan said. “It is important to learn theory first in the classroom and then put that to work. There’s no better way to do that hands-on than in the logistics center.”There was no room for goofing off, he said. The students had to learn about health and safety in the workplace along with the logistics training.And he challenged the students to think and resolve problems that occurred in the warehouse, telling them that they would need to do so when working in logistics.Benglan said the students performed well. On the final exams, Ethridge scored 95 percent. Another student got a 90 percent, and the rest averaged 80 percent. All qualified to be hired full-time at BLG, he said, and all will have the opportunity to advance further in a logistics career if they choose.“The goal is to achieve full certification by the German Chamber of Commerce in Germany so that students will have the opportunity to train and work there as well,” he said.“Global expertise is nowadays more and more important for the business world, and we would like to use this opportunity to expand the BLG and Alabama’s workforce.”McBride, Brookwood High’s principal, said the school is working to get money for the class for the next school year and wants to offer a full-year of logistics apprenticeship training program.“We already have students applying and asking how to get into the program,” she said. The goal is to have 16 to 20 students start a full year of the logistics apprenticeship training when school resumes in August. If they successfully complete the training, they too will have a job waiting for them at BLG upon graduation.McBride, who has been an educator for 29 years, said she took pride in seeing the eight students succeed in what started as an experimental program.“I have seen them grow and mature as they prepared to graduate. I am so proud of them. You could just see their self-confidence grow.”One of the students, James Dorrity, said he had earlier left school after he had some problems but came back after McBride called him and persuaded him to try the program.“She said ‘What do you plan to do after high school?’ ” he said. Unsure of his future and never having heard about logistics, Dorrity decided to try the program.“After I got through I had learned so much. I even learned about the history of logistics and about Germany,” he said, noting the program helped convince him to finish high school.